HR Branding

Employer Branding – A New HR Arena

This is a market oriented era. If you have a good brand value in market, you will get good
response if not; it’s very difficult to convince people. From an HR point of view branding
is very important. If your organization has a good brand image in the market, it will help
you in getting right workforce at right time and at the same time you will have a control
over the employee cost. An organization with no brand name has to shell out lots of
money to attract and retain the right candidate.

Branding can be done in two ways: (1) External Branding and (2) Internal Branding.
Lots of factors may influence the branding strategy of an organization, like A) Nature of
Business B) Nature of market C) Target reception D) Budget flexibility E) Long term
mission of the organization F) Organizational structure. Etc. These are the few to count
on but there may be many as per the business.

Branding Strategy

A) Nature of Business – Branding should be based on the nature of business. Like if

an IT company goes for a fashion show, it may not yield the same results as it
would have got by going to IT Fair or something similar. A real estate company
may go for some road show on property market.
B) Nature of Market – It is always recommended to gauge the market before going
for any project which involves market risk Like if you are targeting to explore a
Financial market or banking and at the same time it is marred by some other
factors like Inflation, you need to design your strategy which could help you in
overcoming the negative trend.
C) Reception Target – It’s always good to define the reception target or the
audiences. If you are planning to sell Villas and targeting the middle class,
probability is very high that you will end up spending your time and resources in
wrong direction.
D) Budget Flexibility – Budget always plays an important role in deciding the
strategies. If your budget doesn’t allow you to spend a lot, its always
recommended to partner in any event where other participants are not of your
field and it has got at least one participant who has got a good market value so
that you can attract the crowd.
E) Long Term Mission of Organization – Also the long term as well as short term
goals of the organization should be kept in mind. If the organization does not have
any long term goals in the target market or location, it’s always recommendable
not to go for branding or it is very much required go for a small, low budgeted
branding event.
F) Organizational Structure – Organizational structure is also very vital part for
deciding any strategy. Organizational structure is the strength of any organization
and any event or branding can be done based on that. Like if your organization
does not have lots of hierarchy steps, you can boast of Flatness and claim of equal
behavior. And if you have different layers, you can market the clear definition of
roles etc.

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HR Branding

External Branding – External branding refers to branding which is done by using

external sources and which may (or may not) require some investment in monetary or
other forms. Let’s see the different means of doing external branding.

(a) Use of Job Sites – As HR the first thing which comes to the mind is recruitment,
so Job sites also offer good branding opportunities through different means like
Pop ups, pop ins etc. It’s always better to go for pop ins as most of web browsers
come with pop-up blockers.
(b) Banners – Banners are also a good mean for branding. Banners can be of both
types’ means Online Banner and Street banners. By Online banner, your
organization name will be flashed on different web pages as per your choice and
price. Street banners are good for bigger requirements.
(c) Road Shows – Road shows are also an important mean for creating brand
awareness. You can organize talks, presentations, seminars etc. for attracting
people towards your organization.
(d) Corporate Social Responsibility – Corporate social responsibility refers to
corporate getting associated with society for some noble cause. The association
can be in any mode either getting associated with a Charitable Trust or a NGO or
some other public venture. Corporate can align and attach with any of these and
share the stage. Always keep in mind that choose as per you organization status
meaning if you are a small firm, do associate with a medium sized organization
and if medium you can align with either of these- large or medium. Idea should be
you get a nice coverage in the popularity cake.
(e) Public Events – Public events are one of the major ways of creating a brand
image. An organization can participate in any of the public event and assuring that
it does not get disappeared in the crowd of many brands or big names.
(f) Newspapers – Branding can be done through newspapers as well. If you target
the local public, you can go for advertisements considering the individual day
circulation, target readers, rapport of newspaper, type of newspaper etc. If you
target only to employ people for your workforce requirement, you can place job
Ads which may seem expensive at the first glance but in terms of attracting the
correct workforce, it can do magic.
(g) Email – For mail ids related to job portals, you can create an auto reply which can
contain brief description of the key aspects of candidate’s and public interest and
at the same time introducing your company to the public. It should be informative
as well as crispy so that the audience reads it and just doesn’t do Shift Delete.
(h) Tagline – Create a nice, attractive tagline or a punch line for your brand and give
it a significant visibility in all your branding efforts. The tag line should be in
accordance with your organization values, goals, work etc. so that it reflects an
overall image of the brand everywhere.
(i) Align with celebrity – Aligning with a celebrity is also a good way of creating a
brand image. But this may cost you big bucks and ultimately increasing your cost
dramatically. This is an expensive method of branding.

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HR Branding

Internal Branding – Internal Branding is comparatively a cheaper way of branding. You

can use your internal organizational staff for this purpose.

(a) Front Office – Always pay attention to your front office because first impression
is last impression. It should be kept neat and clean with a pleasant receptionist
who always maintains freshness and welcomes the guests with courtesy.
(b) Stays Interview - HR can always conduct stay interviews in which they can
interact with the employee and ask them regarding their career prospects, there
alignment with the company, there feedback regarding their concerned
departments, etc. These feedbacks can be analyzed and used for different
purposes by which you can create an internal brand image of the country.
(c) Exit Interview – An exit always carries a fair chance of initiating the chain
reaction among the employees so always be very careful in analyzing the exiting
reasons so that you can overcome the justified ones in the future.
(d) Employee Satisfaction – Employee satisfaction is always very important for any
organization to grow. A satisfied employee is a productive employee. If your
employee is satisfied, you can relax because they will create a good and positive
rapport for the company in the market outside.
(e) Policy Information – Always design your policies very strategically. A policy
should be designed in such a way that it holds good even after a long period of
time. A frequent internal policy change sends a message to the outer world that
the company is not consistent and knowledgeable and reliable.
(f) Customer Orientation – Customers are always the most important factors.
Always keep your workforce motivated towards delivery of customer oriented
services. Customers can be of either type, internal or external.
(g) Employee Participation – Always try to ensure the maximum participation from
the employee side, either in terms of internal events participation or external
events.
(h) Trained Employees – Always ensure proper training of employees before they
are engaged in work. The training should be in all the aspects like policies, vision,
mission, organization. This will project a good picture of organization on the new
employee.

These are few to count with but based on the requirement and strategy, the list may
increase or shorten.

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